‘He Saved a Lot of Lives’: Combat Veteran Tackled Colorado Gunman in Police Station
He Saved a Lot of Lives
A police officer works with a tactical assault gun in the training and qualifications department of his police department in Gadsden, Ala., on Dec. 18, 2015. (John Amis/AP)
When the man who killed a police officer in a standoff at the end of the month walked free of justice after shooting a police dog, he left behind his victim, a police dog named Jethro, and a fellow police dog named Lassie.
Killed: Jethro, a black Labrador retriever, died after he was shot by a man who walked away after killing a police dog. Jethro, the first police dog to be killed by a shooter since the Sept. 11 attacks, was only 5 months old.
(AP Photo/Mark Duncan)
On a warm April day in 2011, Sergeant Johnathan King and his partner, Officer Jeff Foster, were driving through a sparsely populated neighborhood of Gadsden, Ala. Around 4 a.m., King spotted a man with a rifle walking along the side of the road.
He stopped his patrol car and opened a door that led to the back seat. Foster and King got out and waited for the suspect to walk over.
A white man with a brown and black beard stepped onto the asphalt and walked up to where King and Foster were standing.
He pointed a gun at the officer, King said. Foster drew his weapon and fired, hitting the man in his chest. Foster grabbed the man’s gun hand and handcuffed him.
Both police officers were injured and were rushed to the hospital, where they spent two days in the ICU before being released.
The man admitted to being the person who put the bullet in the officer’s chest during the incident more than two decades ago. But he later told investigators that he’d been on